Chapter 1

I was on a video call with my girlfriend when a masked man in black forced his way into her apartment.

Chloe screamed and struggled, but she never had a chance against him.

"Who are you?" I shouted at the screen. "What do you want? I'm warning you, let go of her or I'm calling the police!"

He didn't even look up. Then, at the last second, he glanced at the camera, gave me a lazy, amused smile, and dragged Chloe into the bathroom.

I called emergency services in her country over and over, and every time I got the same recorded voice telling me the number couldn't be reached.

Her screaming came through the speaker. Every cry went into me like a blade, and I shook so hard I could barely hold the phone.

"Don't come near me. Don't! Let go of me!"

"Ethan, help me! Please, help me!"

She was crying too hard to form words. All I could do was sit there and squeeze my fists until my nails opened the skin of my palms.

"Is anybody out there?" I was screaming at a room eight thousand miles away, at nobody. "There's a man in this apartment! Somebody help her!"

"Let her go. Please, I'm begging you, whatever you want, I'll give it to you."

Blood ran down my fingers and I never felt it. The tears came like a dam breaking.

It hurt. God, it hurt. And what I hated most was myself, because I was useless, because all I could do was watch a stranger hurt the only woman I'd ever loved.

"I will find you," I said. "I swear I will find you."

The masked man walked back into frame alone, and there was nothing in his eyes but satisfaction.

"Your girlfriend's dead," he said. "My advice? Find yourself another one."

Then he reached over and ended the call.

The screen went black. The chat window showed the call length — seven minutes, forty-five seconds — and looking at that number was what finally broke me.

I ran two red lights getting to the police station. The officer who took my report told me that cases in another country take a long time to coordinate and that I shouldn't expect much.

I sat down on the front steps with the report in my hand, covered my face, and cried where anyone could see me.

An officer coming off shift stopped and put a hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, son. If I were you, I'd get on a plane and go say goodbye to her while you still can."

My shoulders dropped.

I wanted to be on that plane an hour ago. I just didn't have the money for it.

My banking app showed a balance of zero. Every dollar in the account had been transferred out minutes before the call ended.

A ticket cost three thousand dollars, and on a good day, if I didn't stop to eat, rideshare paid me a hundred and fifty.

So I set my jaw and got back in the car. Airport runs, bar pickups, early-morning commuters, anything the app would give me. After a month of driving day and night, three different platforms locked me out for exceeding their safety limits, and I finally had enough for the ticket.

The night before I flew out, the guys I used to trade tips with started messaging me. Every one of them told me not to go.

"Ethan, you've done more for that girl than anybody could ask. Five years of driving and every dollar of it went to her — her food, her rent, her tuition, her handbags. You've been more of a parent to her than her parents were. Let it go and start over."

"Don't take this the wrong way, kid. I'm not the cold one here, the world is. I get wanting to make somebody pay. But how are you going to live once you land? You can't even afford the flight home."

"There's nothing waiting for you over there."

I thanked them, because they meant it kindly.

But none of them knew what Chloe and I had been through together.